Sunday, July 27, 2008

Bizarro is brought to you today by Censorship International. "Hey! You can't do that!"

As I mentioned yesterday, I accidentally left my current cartoons at home so I'm using stuff that is on my laptop, hence the date of this cartoon.

This is one that never ran in the papers because it was feared that people with OCD would rise up against newspaper editors all across the land and cause trouble for me. One might be tempted to say, "Don't give in, Dan. To hell with them if they can't take a joke." But editors don't like losing a day of work answering angry emails, letters and phone calls and may decide to replace Bizarro with a less controversial clone. That would be bad for me. So this isn't really censorship as much as it is my personal editor advising me against it and me agreeing.

I experienced a bit of this last week when I ran a cartoon about dyslexia. I didn't lose any papers over it (that I know of), but some folks complained. I have OCD and dyslexia in my family (and a touch of OCD myself) so I feel I have the right to poke a little fun at me and mine. Humor is an age-old human device for getting through tough times and situations, so I am not as sensitive about it as many people apparently are. God knows that vegans get regularly grilled in humor venues of all kinds, but I take it with grain of salt (or a salt lick) and laugh at myself and my kind. My folks taught me that. Laughing at ridicule and teasing takes the fun out of it for the other guy, and the sting out of it for you.

The blog is good for this kind of cartoon, which will likely never see wider publication. Glad I had this opportunity to share it with you, hope no one has taken time off from checking the door locks and stove handles to get offended.

I think our society is getting out of control with people taking offense. Of course, I say that only until someone says something way offensive and then I think our society is getting out of control with people saying offensive things. Sometimes people are stupid and sometimes stupid people say stupid things. Apart from all that, though, I thought the comic was very funny and was not poking fun in a malicious manner.

It's weird, how people don't get humour. Or they get it until it's about them and they forget that it's not for real. I don't think anything is off limits, I might not like it, it might suck, I might even be offended, but it's not off limits.I was offended once when I saw a black stand-up comedian making jokes about being black in Sweden and picking apart myth after myth. Then he went over to making fun of eastern european (like me) pilots, but only building the jokes upon prejudice (stupidity, illetarcy, alcoholism), and not conterclaiming them once. In contrast to his anti-racist theme I was offended by his hypocracy. The jokes themselves were only old.

motto of the day - laughter is life...god knows in what order your cartoons they run...the sj-r ran a substitute cartoon today. BUT like i said i came to your cartoonery late so i enjoy the old one too.

This was funny. I've got mild OCD and I GET IT... as do my other friends with OCD. Some people are just strung waaaay tooooo tight. BOOORING! Sheesh! If only people put all that unused energy towards something worthwhile...

it made me giggle because i want to hang that sign in the bathroom at work hoping it will make more people actually wash their hands. (yuck!)

aside from not washing at all, my (gross) favorite is the person that answers their cell phone in the stall and, while still on the phone, they go to the sink and merely rinse the fingertips on their free hand. no wonder cell phones are so nasty, right?

i generally open the door with the paper towel and toss it to the trash from the door so i don't have to touch their yuckiness.